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Predatory Lending is Crushing Small Businesses (continued)

posted by martyb on Tuesday December 04 2018, @10:14AM   
from the the-system-is-broken dept.

stretch611 writes:

In a followup to an article discussed previously here on SoylentNews:

Bloomberg has a three-part series on the use of an obscure legal document that unscrupulous lenders are using against small businesses.

• In Part 1 - I Hereby Confess Judgement, (the part discussed earlier on SoylentNews,) they go into detail on what the predatory lenders are doing to small businesses using a document known as a "Confession of Judgement" to extract court wins from small businesses without a trial.
• In Part 2 - The $1.7 Million Man, they go into how a debt collector became NYC's top earning official.
• In Part 3 - Rubber Stamp Justice, the article describes how the courts are involved, and what some of them are doing to prevent this abuse.

After the story was released on Bloomberg, the New York State Attorney General's office opened a formal investigation last month.

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Original Submission

• Re:Thank goodness for Government. (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday December 04 2018, @10:47PM

  by khallow (3766) on Tuesday December 04 2018, @10:47PM (#769826) Journal

  Well, in 1865, when Rockefeller’s market share was still minuscule, a gallon of kerosene cost 58 cents. In 1870, Standard’s market share was 4%, and a gallon cost 26 cents. By 1880, when Standard’s market share had skyrocketed to 90%, a gallon cost only 9 cents — and a decade later, with Standard’s market share still at 90%, the price was 7 cents.

  Let us note this wasn't merely coincidence. Standard Oil gained market share in the first place because it was cheap. And over the course of those years, it created a massive, efficient system for extracting, shipping, and processing petroleum.

  Parent

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